"Vallescondido"
and how to get to The Maya Ruins at Piedras Negras, Guatemala
Located in Chiapas, Mexico, on kilometer 61 of the highway between Palenque and Frontera Corozal, for years Restaurante Vallescondido has been the place where all the tour buses stop for breakfast on the way to the Maya ruins at Bonampák and Yaxchilán. It certainly does have a pleasant breakfast buffet.
However, its owner, Willy Fonseca, is also doing affordable one or two day trips to the ruins at Piedras Negras and other sights are included as well. The normal charge for an minimum of 4 people was $125 each as of 2004 and also in early 2006. The boat will hold 5-6 passengers, so the share then would be less.
Included in what I paid was the use of a cabaña the night before that has three double beds and a bathroom with an actual bath tub edged with stone along the upper perimeter. Obviously, I did not need all that. Apparently he has built more cabañas since then. There was also a small pond where I could have gone swimming if I had arrived earlier in the day or had felt like it in the morning. Since then, Willy has put in more cabañas for people taking his tours.
Items included are a buffet breakfast, lunch, soft drinks and beer. For the day trip after seeing Piedras Negras, people have the choice of either seeing the small ruins at La Mar, a cenote and El Porvenir OR swimming at Bucilha Falls, presumably below them. I opted for the ruins, but on reflection, I would have preferred the swimming. A two day trip, which must have a minimum of four people, at that time had the same price.
Although Willy offered me the use of the cabaña to allow for an earlier start, we did not get away until around the listed 8:30 am departure time due to the hectic early schedule of his restaurant and I could easily have gotten there early enough for breakfast via the earliest combi-bus or one of the more useful Lagos de Montebello buses near the market.
Willy has a large boat and motor that he carries atop his truck to do the trip to the ruins. As he drives by, local people recognize him and call out his name. Although he could probably have his staff make ice for the trips, he buys it along the way from a local person. When he shows up at the little village of Nueva Esperanza to put in his boat, many people turn out to help. Some carry the boat and some hoist the motor. I got the impression that he was relatively generous in payment and I am quite certain that he is a big help in the local economy.
During the tour of Piedras Negras, Willy took along a sheaf of copies of drawings by Tatiana Proskouriakoff. At each significant location, he pulled out the appropriate one to show her rendition of how it would have looked back in the Maya Late Classic Period. This certainly helped me to see it better.
This trip needs at the very most 24 hours notice, as long as there is no other group going when you want to. Currently I do not have his cell phone number, but people going on a day or overnight tour to Yaxchilán or Bonampák could arrange a trip for a later day during the breakfast stop. If you are heading via combi or bus toward those same ruins, you could stop as well. Willy is the bald fellow wearing a straw hat.
Willy has e-mail. See busil_h @ hotmail.com.
He also has cell phones at 916-348-0721 and 916-100-0399
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